Various types of folding apparatus utilize folding formers in which one or more webs are passed over the former, for forming a first fold, which will be longitudinal. The printed web is then pulled off the former with pull-off rollers, may be perforated, and then applied to a second folder which forms a transverse fold. The second folding apparatus may form two transverse folds. Customarily, the transverse folding apparatus comprises a pair of cylinders forming a cutter and a folding blade cylinder pair and a folding flap or gripper cylinder. By suitable control of needles or needling pins, the web, after having having been cut to provide printed substrates of a predetermined length, can be folded and collected on the folding blade cylinder.
In known folding apparatus, the printed substrates, which may be single sheets or superimposed multiple sheets, can be applied to a subsequent folding apparatus to form a third fold which, customarily, is formed by a pair of rollers or cylinders between which a folding blade can be inserted to form a longitudinal pinch fold. This, then, will be a second longitudinal fold, although the further folding apparatus may also provide a transverse fold.
Folding apparatus of this type can have one or two output transport systems for supplying the printed substrates singly or separately. Inserts into newspapers, however, had to be manually if the printed products were of different types. It is also difficult to insert transversely folded products of different characteristics or different types on a collection cylinder after the third fold since the third fold customarily, is a longitudinal fold and substrates of different types could no longer be readily separated from each other. For example, an outer printed sheet would no longer surround an inner printed sheet, which, however, is desirable for newspaper readers, for example. As an illustration of different types of substrates, one may consider that one type may be an advertising insert, for example for ladies' wear, and the other an advertising insert for men's wear.